FX Superhero Drama ‘Powers’ is “Still Alive,” Says President

As we brace for the final days of the news onslaught that is the Television Critics Association press tour panel, FX having largely completed its intended presentations, one question remains for superhero fans: just whatever happened to the live-action adaptation of superhero procedural comic 'Powers?' In development since 2009 with a pilot already in the can, is there any hope of seeing the Brian Michael Bendis-produced drama on TV? New updates on 'Powers' from FX president John Landgraf inside!

There may yet be good news on the horizon for fans of Brian Michael Bendis’ superhero comic ‘Powers,’ which has long-remained in development as a live-action series at FX. Initially unsatisfied with the pilot adaptation, the network reportedly asked for a re-shoot with adjustments from writer Charles Eglee, though the network again seemed unsatisfied with the results.

For those unfamiliar, ‘Powers’ follows detectives Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim, two Homicide division inhabiting a world regularly menaced by the struggles between superhero and supervillain, or “Powers” to which they’re referred. Walker also acts as liaison to the super-powered community given his own past among them.

Recently IGN caught up with FX president John Landgraf, who surprisingly confirmed that the project was "still alive," though essentially starting from scratch with another pilot.

After we made the pilot, we actually developed three more [episode] scripts..we decided between the pilot and the scripts that it wasn’t quite the series that we needed it to be...one of the scripts was written by this guy named Charlie Huston, and he was a novelist. Both I and Brian [Bendis] and others thought, “Wow, there is actually something in the tone of this.” So Charlie was approached, I think by Brian, and said, “Look, would you be interested in taking on Powers?” And Charlie said, “Well, I’ve never actually adapted anything before in my life. I have only written novels and stuff of my own, but Powers is my favorite graphic novel, and yes!”

So what ended up happening was we reconstituted the whole thing around Charlie as the creator, with Brian. Charlie went up to Seattle, and they sat down and they talked, and read through all the books, and they came back with a new vision, basically. Essentially, a new pilot to begin with, which is a new, different story than the pilot that we shot. So that pilot is officially gone and dead, and the actors are all gone, but we’re developing a whole new pilot from scratch.

Previously, Jason Patric and Lucy Punch have been cast in the roles of Walker and Pilgrim, along with Charles S. Dutton, ‘LOST‘ star Titus Welliver and Carly Foulkes, but clearly a re-shoot of the pilot would be made with different actors. Landgraf also specified that he would want a future 'Powers' adaptation to feel distinct from other graphic novel adaptations like 'The Walking Dead,' as well as avoid re-treading any territory covered by the current pantheon of superhero movies like 'The Avengers.'

What say you? Do you think a new version of 'Powers' could still make it to TV? How would you like to see the material handled? Give us your take in the comments!